Self-stewardship for Coaches and Experts — Staying Emotionally Detached when Helping Others
When you’re working closely with clients, it’s natural to form an attachment with them. After all, it’s likely that you became a coach because you felt an emotional drive to help people.
Unfortunately, there comes a time during every coach’s career when they’ll become emotionally attached to a client without even trying. While at first, this might not seem like a bad thing, it can often lead to professional burnout, anxiety, depression, stress, and a wide variety of health issues if you don’t take the time to practice self-stewardship.
What is Self-stewardship?
Self-stewardship is quite simply, the practice of caring for yourself and managing your emotional connections. This is similar to the concept of self-care but specifically focuses on the responsible management of your professional self. As a self-employed coach, you and your health are at the heart of your business, so it’s vital to manage yourself as you would anyone else entrusted into your care.
Why Emotional Detachment is Self-stewardship
The common signs that your emotional attachment to a client is becoming detrimental to your mental and physical health include:
● Feeling numb, depressed, or experiencing burnout,
● Questioning your competence,
● Struggling to maintain professional boundaries with said client,
● Preoccupied with thoughts of said client outside of work.
Emotional detachment aims not to make you a weaker coach, but a stronger one. It’s the practice of maintaining a professional distance from your client so you can protect yourself from their trauma and negative emotions. This will not only help your client to understand your professional boundaries but will also help you to switch off from your work and find time to care for your own emotions.
The Midwife Metaphor
Many coaches and experts like to use the “midwife metaphor” to help keep them grounded and remind themselves of their role in the life of their clients.
Just as a midwife helps mothers to deliver their babies, it’s your job as a coach to help guide your clients through their pain, stay by their side, and listen to them as they go through the healing process. It’s not your job to take on and process that pain for them.
This metaphor often helps to remind coaches that it’s a privilege to help clients process their pain, and that the pain that clients feel is necessary for them to heal and grow from their past.
Processing Your Emotions
No matter how emotionally detached you aim to be, it’s normal that you’ll need space to decompress if you’re working with a client whose trauma and pain is particularly difficult for you to hear. That’s why we always recommend that you find a hobby that will help you to let go of those emotions at the end of the day. Coaches and experts in the speaking field often use pastimes like gardening, exercise, crafts, art, or writing to help them decompress at the end of the day. Also, many coaches like to direct their energies into “life-giving” hobbies like gardening, houseplants, or animal care to promote a feeling of wellness and remind them of beauty, rebirth, and positive healing.
Feel free to comment below and share your thoughts and experience of self-stewardship in your professional life.
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